Need advice on overnight childcare and pay

Jenn - posted on 10/15/2010
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My husband and I each have occasional work travel (maybe once each month or two), and as of yet we haven't had to be gone at the same time. That situation may come up soon, and as we don't have family in the area that can stay overnight with our daughter (19 months), we'd need to ask our nanny to stay overnight with her. A few questions for you -

1) Any advice on how to pay the nanny for that? Do you just pay the regular hourly rate for xx hours (overnight and daytime), or do you pay a lump overnight rate from say 7pm - 7am? (our toddler sleeps well for about 12 hours). 2) If your child is close in age (or you remember when she/he was :-), how did they handle it? Our daughter loves her nanny but we've never done the overnight thing, and she's getting to the age when she's very aware of things and also pretty attached to mom. 3) Any other advice?

We're coming up on having the same problem, and I have two kids. My older daughter stayed overnight with the nanny during the birth of the younger, and she can't wait to do it again.

I want to negotiate a set rate with the nanny for overnights. If I go with hourly then I'd be paying overtime, which gets expensive very fast. I'm also considering a different nanny (one of our neighbors) for the night shift, just so the nanny doesn't get totally worn down.

I have had issues with this, overnight sitters want to raise the payment by a good $10 per hour and I do not understand why...my child would be sleeping and there is not much that you would have to do because he sleeps all the way through the night. I was willing to pay daytime hours plus throw in money for food and movies or something. Pay what you feel right, if your nanny is a good nanny, she will respect that! It's hard to leave your little one overnight, but like you said, sometimes it has to be done. Perhaps do a trial run, have your nanny over, but you are in your house in your room, not seen and the nanny cares for your little one. To give you a little peace of mind. I hope that helps a little bit!